by Dayn Perry

He's the 11th Yankee captain in history, he's almost certain to get to 3,000 hits, he's a future first-ballot Hall of Famer, and he's got four World Series rings.

By any reasonable measure, Jeter has had a great career — one of the greatest of the modern era. However, these days, he's no longer the best shortstop in baseball. That much is fairly common knowledge. Yet here's the more uncomfortable reality for fans of the Yankees: Jeter is not even the best shortstop in his own city.

By process of elimination, you should be able to figure out that we're talking about young Jose Reyes of the Mets.

It's appropriate in some ways to draw the comparison. Besides sharing the same city, back-in-the-day Jeter and the present version of Reyes have much in common. They both put up excellent offensive numbers by shortstop standards, they both have howitzer arms, they're both efficient and daring on the bases, and they're both fun to watch. The one, important difference is that Reyes is better.

Yes, over in Queens, Reyes has surpassed Jeter in performance, and the gap between them will only grow larger as time goes by. First, consider the offensive numbers in 2008: Reyes has authored a batting line of .306 AVG/.365 OBP/.487 SLG, while Jeter is hitting .295 AVG/.355 OBP/.398 SLG. Plus, Reyes has 46 stolen bases in 59 attempts, and Jeter has but 10 thefts in 14 attempts. As you can see, Reyes has an edge in every category, and he's outdoing Jeter by a wide margin in terms of power (64 extra-base hits to 35). To be sure, Jeter is toiling in the tougher league, but Reyes' home park is more of a pitcher's environment than Yankee Stadium. Besides, make whatever adjustments you like, and it's not enough to bring Jeter close to Reyes in terms of offensive production this season.

And then there's defense. Jeter, despite constant hosannas from the mainstream media, undeserved Gold Gloves, and the comically partisan objections of Yankee fans, simply isn't an adequate defender. And he never has been. He's a great player, and that in part is why people have such a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that Jeter can't field his position. So let's put this another way: in his prime, Jeter was great at every aspect of the game — hitting, running the bases, being a leader, tracking fly balls, showing arm strength, making routine plays — except demonstrating range on ground balls. On this point, the numbers are in total and unflinching agreement. Don't believe the chorus of statistics? Then use your eyes and watch Jeter, particularly when he's moving to his left. What you'll see is a player who has no business manning shortstop. (There's a reason that his derisive nickname in some quarters is Derek "Past a Diving" Jeter.)

As for Reyes, he's much better in the field. He's not a Gold Glove-caliber shortstop, but he's above average and figures to remain so for some time. And unlike Jeter, he's got a first step that allows him to get to an acceptable percentage of ground balls hit into his zone. Now let's put it all together ...

To get a "total package" idea of each player's abilities, we'll turn to Bill James' Win Shares. The statistic Win Shares measures what a player contributes in all phases of the game. In the case of position players, that means hitting, baserunning, and defense. Here's how Reyes and Jeter compare, in terms of Win Shares, during the seasons in which they've both been full-time players (rank among all shortstops in parentheses):

As you can see, Reyes, ever since he arrived in the majors and became a regular, has been making up ground on Jeter. Now he's better than Jeter in any objective sense. It'll be a long time (if ever) before he's similarly adored by the New York media, but he's now a better player than his Bronx counterpart. And considering their respective ages — Reyes is 25 and Jeter is 34 — that's not going to change. It's unlikely — although possible — that Reyes will wind up with a career that's as good as Jeter's. But in the here and now and for the remainder of Jeter's career, Reyes is and, going forward, will be the superior baseball player.

Oh, and he'll also be the only New York shortstop playing in October.